132 You’re On Your Own, Kid – a Recollection of COVID for a 10th Grader
Anonymous
When the Covid pandemic began, I was a 14-year-old grammar school student in Grade 9. I had moved to Lahore, Pakistan to be closer to my dad the year prior and had just begun to adjust to the environment. The plan was always to return to Toronto for Grade 10, which I did, but with travel restricted, it was a period of uncertainty, to say the least. The majority of my recollections and examples of what I did during Covid-19 are from Grade 10, although the basic sentiments surrounding isolation and a poor educational experience are true of Grade 9 as well.
The Covid experience was tough. Between moving countries and leaving friends, the uncertainty of a new school, elderly grandparents and older parents (worries about them being immunocompromised), and the mental health repercussions of being (essentially) locked in my room for several days at a time, I was not doing well. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, I did not leave my house for 6 weeks straight. When I did leave the house, I was quite diligent with masking, vaccinations, and social distancing which helped me not contract the virus. To be honest, the rules of the lockdown and how long each lockdown lasted are a blur to me; all I know is that non-essential travel outside was shut down and so were group meetings, indoor and outdoor. Anyway, when I started at a new school (but familiar area) in Toronto, I felt really disconnected with my peers. A good portion of Grade 10 was entirely online. When we did go in person, the atmosphere had changed drastically, both physically and socially. Physically, we were divided into increasingly small cohorts and desks were distanced from each other. Socially, it was as quiet in classrooms as an exam hall. I remember my teachers asking students to speak to each other when they took pauses between topics because it was eerily quiet. Even outside of class, my sleep schedule was nearly nocturnal, so were eating times, and I rarely ever changed out of my pajamas – there was just no real reason to. This period made grocery shopping seem like a lavish excursion.
The main overlapping theme of Covid and other plagues we have discussed in this class has been uncertainty and stigma. Historically, this has meant confusion and blame directed at a certain population and that is still true nowadays. At times this has surfaced as hate for certain groups, like Asian populations being blamed for COVID-19 as well as certain public figures calling the pandemic the “China Virus.” I recall this causing significant distress and instances of assault towards Asian populations in the Western world. This marginalization towards a group in association with a disease is as old as disease itself. Between HIV/AIDS being attributed to homosexual men, Hansen’s Disease to Chinese immigrants in Singapore, TB to Indian populations, The Black Plague to non-Christian people, the pointing of fingers in times of uncertainty has been part of society as far as we have studied.
For me, the hardest part of covid was social isolation and a large contributor to it was online school. It is difficult to think about. As I mentioned earlier, I had just moved countries and had no friends in the area. I was desperate to make connections. Traditionally, the simplest way for a 15-year-old to make friends is through school and the extracurriculars that come with it. However, with school being completely online for the first 6 months of my Canadian high school experience, I was without friends. Even when I eventually made friends, it felt very long distance, despite the likelihood that they lived in my neighbourhood. Other than the social aspect, I felt like I was not learning anything during the pandemic. Although I did not cheat in any of my classes by looking up things online, I knew a lot of people were, which felt unfair at the time. I now realize that people were just doing their best with what they had handy. Aside from that, I simply was not retaining anything said in those classes. To make it worse, the quadmester system had teachers going through 2 classes worth of content in 1.5 months, attempting to condense a year’s worth of information into that time (spoiler: not a good idea for knowledge retention). Virtual classes, along with a terrible sleep schedule, made for several slept-through classes. Eventually, when classes came back to being in-person, several things had changed in my education. Firstly, I had rocky foundations for several subjects, such as chemistry and math, which I then had to review several times to learn properly. Even simple things like learning to structure essays or ask for volunteer positions that would have been picked up around that period of secondary education were lost on me, and many of my classmates. Secondly, my research skills, surprisingly, improved. So much access on the internet led to several investigative rabbit holes on the internet, which helped me learn what questions to ask on search engines and which sources to get information from. On a different note, missing out to a year and a half of school team sports led to less skill and social development with teammates and coaches. Lastly, I think virtual schooling made me appreciate the physical presence of classmates, and especially friends, more. I made more of an effort to go out of my way to be kind and open with my peers, which I have maintained to this day.
